Monthly Archives: February 2017

“Just 4.5 grains- right there.” I stood next to my stepfather in his father’s garage, watching the scale as I measured gunpowder for the bullet cartridge we were assembling. While 9mm bullets can take more, this is the amount his father taught him when he was a kid. He helped me through assembling the bullet, the cartridge, and finally the primer. “If there’s ever an issue getting parts, this part is the part that will be hardest to source. You can reuse other parts, or make your own gun powder, but the primers aren’t reusable.” I didn’t grow up in a militia. This isn’t some cautionary tale. This is one of the basic rites of passage in my area: To have a family member train you in gun safety and use. It’s part of what it means to be an adult in Appalachian Pennsylvania. The day … Continue Reading ››

I understand if it is hard to keep up with the news coming out of this White House. I don’t envy newsroom editors nor the White House Communications Office. With so much breaking news, you may have missed the episode this week where the President expressed his alarm with the growing rate of autism diagnoses. The President should be alarmed by what we have learned from the growing rate of autism diagnoses. As a former White House Presidential Appointee with a background of knowledge on both autism and how epidemics grow, I can tell you that he absolutely should be. But, it’s not for the reason that he thinks.
On Tuesday, the President held a Parent-Teacher Conference Listening Session at the White House attended by Vice President Pence, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Senior White House Advisor Kellyanne Conway, and teachers and school administrators from across the country.
One particular exchange … Continue Reading ››

On February 8, 2016, the ACLU came out with a study of more than 13,000 documents they received from a lawsuit leveled against the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). What the ACLU discovered is that the TSA’s Screening Passengers By Observation Techniques (SPOT) program does not detect suspicious people or terrorists, is not based on any empirical scientific evidence, and is racially discriminatory. The SPOT program makes use of supposed Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs), which look at the nervous tics and behaviors of passengers making their way through crowded airports and try to find evidence of “stress, fear, and deception.”
I read through the ACLU report and its associated lawsuit and had to agree: The TSA’s SPOT program was ineffectual at best and racially discriminatory at worst. There is one group of people that wasn’t mentioned in the ACLU’s report that is important for understanding how harmful the TSA’s program is: People … Continue Reading ››

On Sunday evening, the National Association of Democratic Disability Caucuses held a virtual candidate forum with candidates for Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Marked by its hosts as a historic step in building a more inclusive party, the forum offered candidates the opportunity to directly engage disabled DNC members ahead of the DNC’s meeting in Atlanta on February 25. There, members of the Democratic National Committee from across the country will gather to elect the body’s next chair. “We have to understand as a community that platitudes and promises are not going to cut it,” chair candidate and former Rock the Vote president Jehmu Greene stated in her closing remarks. Greene was noting the need, in her opinion, for the next DNC Chair to focus less on politics and more on organizing. Reflecting Greene’s opinion and the … Continue Reading ››

When most people think about accessibility in technology, their first thought may be about accessibility for blind or D/deaf people: captioning, visual descriptions or Braille conversion. Blind and D/deaf people aren’t the only ones who benefit from inclusive technology, though. Autistic people, people with learning disabilities, people with ADHD and other neurodivergent people also have access needs that site designers and developers can meet. Here are five ways you can make your websites and apps more accessible for neurodivergent people.
Use subtitles/captions.
Subtitles and captions for online videos aren’t just for D/deaf people or people with hearing loss. Many autistic people and other people with disabilities can have auditory processing difficulties that make it hard to understand spoken, recorded language. Using subtitles helps people follow what they’re listening to. Subtitles can also help people retain what they’ve heard long after they’ve finished watching the video.
Avoid flashing images and clashing palettes.
Quickly … Continue Reading ››